CHAPTER 51
Recovery from surgery was slow, but nowhere near as bad as I had feared. When I left Hemmings’ place, Carol was with me, having taken the train down so that I wouldn’t have to ride all the way home again alone, but for my little rubber ring under the new anatomy. We hardly spoke at all; what should have been the celebration of my body finally being compete was lost in the rattle of train wheels and Tannoy announcements from the guard. It all felt so utterly meaningless, and the question locked in my mind was whether I should really have bothered going through with the surgery. What, after all, was the point?

Mr Hemmings had been as good as his word, and three weeks after that last meeting we were back in Bart’s for another scan, this time with specific directions from Hemmings’ colleagues as to which areas should be scanned, and from which orientation, direction, whatever. That was a day-trip for Mam and me, but another week later, all three of us were back in front of Mr Hemmings, a pot of tea delivered, as ever, by Julia.

Hemmings was playing with his glasses once more, on and off, and I realised that it was what Pete called a ‘tell’, a clue to his mind’s inner working.

“Ken, Lorraine, Debbie. Thank you for coming in person. I much prefer to see the people I am treating, to talk face to face. Unfortunately, it is in the nature of my calling that such conversations may occasionally be less than cheerful. I have shared the results of your scans, as I discussed with you, and my colleagues have given their professional opinions”

Mam was crushing my hand with hers, and I am sure doing the same with Dad.

“It’s bad news, then, Doctor”

Once more, his glasses came off, to be folded and placed on his blotter.

“Yes. I am afraid that it is. My neurosurgeon friend, and the oncologist, both concur. The risk of an adverse outcome from surgery on the primary tumour is unsupportable, and when all the secondaries are taken into account... I am so very sorry. I truly wish I could have delivered better news, but I am, alas, unable to do so. All I can do, in such circumstances, is waive my usual fees. Small comfort, faint solace, but I am unable to offer the answer I would most dearly have preferred”

Dad’s voice was almost inaudible.

“Game over, then?”

“I am afraid so, Ken. Do you have someone to speak with, perhaps someone of a faith you follow?”

Mam nodded sharply.

“Aye, Doctor. We do. More than that: we have our life. Ken, fuck this---sorry, Doctor. We have five, six months, then. Stuff the weekly market shit, stuff the stock and the trailer for those. It’s scene from now on, lifestyle, rallies. Deb gets through her HGV stuff soon, so she’ll be free to join us when she can, and I know Mossman won’t mind. Sorry again, Doctor, but fuck this shit. What’s the calendar, Ken, apart from the Fumble?”

She released my hand, and reached out for the Doctor’s, holding rather than shaking it.

“Thank you, Doctor. Thank you for everything you have done for this family. Sorry we couldn’t bring you an easy one”

He just nodded, moving some papers around with his free hand, but not letting go of hers until he found what he sought.

“This is a scrip from my oncologist colleague. When necessary, and you will know when, I am sorry to say, tender this to your GP and it will allow him to sign a prescription for analgesia, as well as other items that may be necessary. Lorraine, your own professional experience will be of more use than any explanation I can give”

More apologies, more sympathy, and in the end we bailed out of the surgery for the first train we were allowed to board. New Street came, and the slower train to Cannock, and then Carol at the station to meet us with the car. None of us had said more than a very few words for the whole of our journey home, and I was expecting that we would simply go to the house, open the front door, enter, and close it on the whole of the world. To my surprise, Dad insisted Carol drive us around to the Cash and Carry, where we filled the car boot with booze and party food. As we loaded everything, Mam was writing a list on a piece of paper, and once all of us were seated again, she handed it to Carol.

“Your half of the list, love. What you working tomorrow?”

“Day off”

“I remembered right, then. When we’re in, start ringing round. I’ll do the other half or them. Fuck this world; tonight we rock out, we get pissed, we be who we fucking well are, yes?”

“What do I tell them all, Loz?”

“The truth, woman. No more playing, no hiding. We keep our class, OK?”

It ended up almost like an indoor rally, as people piled into the house, many of them with guitars or other instruments, or just a pile of LPs or a bag of cassettes. For two nights, we partied, as people came and went according to their needs and obligations, until finally the booze was gone, and it was just the three of us, alone to face the future Mam didn’t have.

She made a bad joke about getting her wake in while she was still able to enjoy it, and then sat down with Dad to confirm the calendar for what time she had left, and start making phone calls.

I travelled out as often as I could for the events they hit, including the Fumble, of course, and the Beer Barrel and Hairy Stotty, and while Mam didn’t dance, she seemed happy to sit with a drink and watch me do so. One thing I noticed was the way the regulars treated her, and it was very different to what they offered me.

Gandalf, Rosie and Sam, as well as Carl, were effusive in their sympathy, even Carl sharing some tears, as long as that only involved me. With Mam, they were almost painfully cheerful, and seemed to be making no allowances whatever for her problems. I looked to Dad for an explanation, and he was clear, as always.

“Class, Deb. Her class. If she needs help, she’ll let them know, but as long as she is still fighting, they’ll respect that class. Her class, her choices. They’re not ignoring stuff, just following her lead. Respect, aye?”

I got the message, and from then on did my best to follow the lead in public, so that her class could be seen, approved of, and respected. I couldn’t get to every event they did, but I joined them whenever I could, until the Hairy Stotty was over, and I had time to ride with them to Graham’s, where the dynamics were a little different.

Graham was just like the rallyists in his apparent disregard of Mam’s problems, but I caught him warning off his man friend a couple of times, as he became what might have been just a little over-solicitous. Dad fettled the machinery, as well as replacing a section of floor in the old Commer that was starting to rust through, while I lay in the dunes with tape player, shades and Mam. Her energy was really starting to fail her just then, tiredness and headaches rarely far away, and that same class could be relaxed as we lay by each other behind the wonderful beach, marram stalks waving in the steady breeze and the coconut smell of gorse flowers heavy in the air. She didn’t have to affect confidence then, nor pretend nothing was wrong with her, just lie with me in the sun and listen to the calls of terns and gulls and the rustle of the wind over the sand, as the waves shushed them all.

Time ran out, as ever, and they dropped me off in Morpeth for the bus into Newcastle and the trains home.

“What are you doing, you two?”

Dad smiled at Mam, a little sadly.

“Across the tourist way again, duck. Stop in a couple of places by the Wall, then bugger the tourists and have a look at the Lakes again. Maybe head on up to the Highlands if the weather holds out. Make the most… Things to do, places to see. You get your tests passed, duck, and we’ll let you know next meeting place”

Hugs, love in abundance, and they were off. It was only three days later that the knock came on the front door in Cannock.

“Hello. What do you want?”

I was rarely at ease with coppers, for some odd reason, and there were two of them a man and a woman.

“Is this the home of Kenneth and Lorraine Petrie?”

I knew, then. I knew, immediately, what they were there for, and my bloody legs failed me, but the woman caught me before I could hit the ground, the man muttering “Get her indoors, Trace. Bit of privacy be good”

They bundled me into the house, and onto an armchair, and I wanted to say they couldn’t, they had no right to enter, but all I could come out with was a request to try next door, where Pete was in, and then the kettle was on, and I knew, how I knew.

I ended up in Pete’s arms on the settee, as introductions were made, and a mug of tea was put into my hands, as the two coppers, PCs Jeffers and Peart, tried to give me the news they were so clearly reluctant to deliver. I cut them short.

“Where were they found?”

The woman, Trace, Jeffers, seemed even younger than me.

“Um, a place in Northumberland. There’s a quarry, on Hadrian’s Wall”

“Cawfield?”

“That’s the place. You know it?”

“It’s one of our favourite spots. Little lake with a car park”

She tried a smile, but it was rather beyond her.

“Never been there. Is it nice?”

“Gorgeous. What happened?”

The second part of her news was becoming clear already, because it wasn’t one of my parents delivering the news, but two coppers. I was starting to shake again, and Peter noticed, taking the cup from me and turning back to the police.

“Not being funny, not meaning to be nasty, but could you please get to the point?”

The man, Peart, looked down for a second.

“I’m afraid we have some bad news, Ms Wells”

Enough was finally enough, and I lashed out.

“I fucking know that, don’t I? It’s fucking obvious! Is it both of them? Just fucking TELL me!”

Peter squeezed my shoulders, and I mumbled an apology as Jeffers sighed and said “Yes, I am afraid so”

The words were logjammed in my throat, but I managed “How?”

She sighed once more.

“Was your Dad a mechanic or engineer, Ms Wells?”

I nodded.

“Ex-army. REME, vehicle mechanic. He was really good with machinery”

She was nodding in turn.

“We suspected as much. He appears to have modified the vehicle they were in, an old van.

“A Commer”

A quick check of her notes.

“Yes. The quarry is on the Pennine Way, and it is used as a camp site for walkers”

“Yeah. We’ve shared breakfasts with them in the past”

“Right. Anyway, one of the campers got up in the small hours to ask him to turn his engine off. He says it wasn’t loud, just irritating. He said he tried the doors, but there were curtains drawn over the windows, and there was no reply from inside, so he shone a torch, and he could see fumes coming out of the roof ventilator and the air intake below the windscreen. He was a fireman, as it turned out, so he smashed one of the side windows, in the passenger door, and the van was full of engine exhaust fumes. He got the doors open, then the side door, and found your parents… he found your parents in bed. There was nothing he could do for them”

Peter held me tighter as he asked his own question.

“What went wrong?”

Peart looked at Jeffers, and she shrugged, then completed the story.

“That’s possibly the wrong question, Peter. It appears that the exhaust system had been modified so that it could be redirected through a pipe into the inside of the van. I am afraid there is only one conclusion that can be drawn from that. Tell me, is there any reason you can think of why, you know…”

I managed to speak again, but only just.

“Mam had terminal cancer. Only a few months to go”

“Ah. Do you think it was her choice? If not, we would be looking at a possible murder-suicide rather than two suicides”

Peter’s hug was becoming painful.

“I think it was time the two of you fucked right off, don’t you?”

“Well, we need to---”

“Fuck. Off. Now. Got me?”

They did indeed fuck right off, and with them went any sympathy I might have held for their position. ACAB. Fucking ACAB. It wiped out my memories of that chat in Cardiff, with Sergeant Harris, where they were looking to do Charlie Cooper. Here, my parents were both gone, and all they wanted was someone to blame.

I am afraid I slammed the door, which saved me from letting them see me break down completely, but Peter was there, and Carol joined us later, the two of them as calm and soothing as ever. Carol was almost smiling, which seemed odd.

“Never did anything apart, those two. Deb, you know how they met?”

“Yeah. In a military hospital, wasn’t it?”

“And I already know that you know that Ken was a patient there, on the psych ward. Loz looked after him, while he showed her that not all squaddies are arseholes. What you need to know, though, is simpler. The only thing that kept Ken with us, back then, was Loz. I know what you think… thought of Ken, but without Loz, he would have folded years ago. I know what you’re thinking, love”

“What am I thinking?”

“You’re screaming ‘Why leave me on my own?’. Am I right?”

I nodded, not trusting my mouth to be sensible.

“Well, I think, if Loz had still been on song, he would have found another way to move on, been able to stay with you. I think Loz had lost that ability”

“Not true, not at all. I mean, she did the class thing with everyone else, but we talked, she was honest with me… wasn’t she?”

Peter broke the mood, deliberately.

“I’ll organise a service, if you want, love. I can see why Loz organised that wake thing now. You got details for the Welsh lot? Anyone else?”

I realised I needed to speak to Graham, because it was now obvious what Dad had been doing during our last stay there, and so I pushed them both out of the house so that I could scream for a while, before starting on the telephone calls. A heads-up first, to be followed by a later call once the bodies were released. Graham first.

I nearly missed the front doorbell the next morning, because my head was thick with the hangover I had worked so hard to deliver the night before, and I opened the door to find Mick on the step with a card and a hug. I brought him into the living room, while I went back upstairs for a puke, finding tea steaming ready for me on my return.

That set the pattern of my life for the next few weeks. Mr Mossman provided a flatbed wagon to recover the Commer once the police had finished with it, and they finally left me alone after plumping for a double suicide rather than trying to shit all over Dad’s memory. Just for the sake of their paperwork, or crime ratio, or whatever they felt they needed. Pete arranged an ostensibly ‘humanist’ cremation up in Stafford, and I am sure the mourners terrified those attending the preceding and following services. I was passed around so many people for hugs and attempts at comfort that I lost track, but there were two things that touched my soul, both from one of Carl’s brothers.

I had said my last goodbye in the chapel of rest that held Mam and Dad before their final journey, and the two gifts were left with them for that trip. They were beautiful wooden carvings, a caduceus for Mam, and a Triton badge for Dad. I ensured they went with my parents, inside the coffins rather than left on top, and we sang songs that meant things to us, about nights in white satin and being frolicsome and easy, good tempered and free, and I really didn’t give a single pin, my boys, what the world thought of me.

The curtains closed, and the coffins went through the hatch, and a little while later I received two simple urns holding all that was left of my parents. Another week later, peter, carol and I were once more in Northumberland. I had thought long and hard about meaningful places, and Brocolitia was the obvious one. Three of us walked slowly around the grassy ridges that marked the old fort’s walls, as a curlew trilled somewhere under the vast and empty sky.

A tiny temple, a comfort for soldiers so far from home and family. Pete poured a libation to the spirits of the place, and as the wind moved under that immense bowl of blue, we offered it Ken and Lorraine Petrie.

It was over, but my life went on.

I wasn’t sure if that was what I really wanted.